It has long been a method of draining fluids from the human body to insert a flexible, hollow tube into the area where fluid needs draining, for the purpose of providing a pathway for the fluid to exit from the body. These tubes are called catheters.
In the pursuit of this objective, many variations of catheters have been designed. Although they are widely used today, one of the major problems associated with catheters is that they often provide an environment for infections to grow. The most common site is the urinary tract, where 40 percent of all hospital-acquired infections occur. The most common cause of these infections is urethral instrumentation, primarily catheterization. In fact, between 10 and 15 percent of all hospitalized patients have indwelling catheters.
Many methods have been used to fight this problem, flooding of the area with antibiotics and antiseptic solutions prior to the introduction of the catheter, use of a closed-catheter drainage system, periodic instillations of chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide or glutaraldehyde into the collecting bag can delay the onset of bacteriuria, but no devices have been completely effective in eliminating infections in the patient with a long-term indwelling catheter.
Prior art which has addressed this problem is:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,848 issued 04-12-83 to Lucas et al entitled CATHETERIZATION; PREVENTING INFECTION comprising a catheter manufactured from a permeable polymer and a lumen through which flows an aqueous solution containing carbolic acid in a reservoir which diffuses through the polymer providing a zone of microbial inhibition around the catheter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,946 issued 02-09-88 to Dennis entitled URINARY CATHETER, HYGIENE SYSTEM AND PROCESS THEREFORE comprising a urinary catheter and cleansing process for cleansing the catheter while in place within the users bladder.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,439 issued 01-03-89 to Guest entitled SPIRAL MULTI LUMEN CATHETER comprising a multi-lumen catheter having lumens which do not extend in a straight line down the length of the catheter and method of manufacturing same.
While the foregoing prior art devices provide some protection against infection in the area of catheters, they are clearly ineffective and costly to manufacture. In addition, due to their specificity, some of the prior art is limited in its ability to utilize all of the many anti-microbial solutions which are presently available.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for a convenient, simple to use, inexpensive to manufacture anti-infection catheter which is effective in combating this consequence of other medical treatments.